Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Musically inspired image

I did this almost a year ago but didn't post it because it felt like the time for posting fall colored pictures had passed. But it's fall again so I'll post it now. So last year in the digital painting class I teach we did the assignment where you illustrate a piece of music. I told them they could do a narrative of the lyrics or just try to capture the feeling of the music itself. I decided I wanted to do the assignment too, so I did this based on the song "Landed" by Ben Folds. That song has elements of sadness, hope, excitement and emptiness all rolled into one, and it's in the music, not just the lyrics. I wanted to try and capture the way that music makes me feel in an image. I don't know if it really worked, and for that matter, I don't know if visual imagery can ever move people as powerfully as music can, but music can certainly paint a picture in my head. And my class came up with some really good stuff on this assignment so it must have been a good exercise.

woah... can't stop staring at this one..when i look at this there's definitely a heavy yet overall positive vibe i get.

so this kind of sparks a thought for me: i was watching this ted talk - http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html and essentially there's a part where the guy says that the main area of the brain which is connected with decisions, isn't connected to language. so the reasons "why" you make a decision can't accurately be expressed verbally because it's more of a feeling instead.

so the thought is this: music and paintings and other forms of "art" -when you REALLY attempt to put real feeling into them - literally become external hard drives for all kinds of decisions and why's that can be transferred to another person, though they may not even be aware of what that is because it's not being "spoken" to them verbally.

now i'm gonna go way out there and say, maybe music is like the consciousness of our feelings... but perhaps there's like.. a SUBconsciousness of our feelings and maybe it might be more visual (dreams and stuff?) that is more difficult to feel.anyways, sorry if i've thought out loud on my keyboard too much on your blog.. haha.again, really dig this one.

Kevin I like the way you think. I hadn't heard that before- the part about the decision making part of the brain not being connected to language. That explains a lot of things, like the fact that the most common answer for "why did you do that?" is "I don't know." That conversation takes place in my house almost daily. But yeah, just being told something doesn't necessarily seem to influence one's decision making in life, but when you feel it...pain, fear, hope, whatever, that seems to make a big difference. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!